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Carl J. Mayer (CM - 6589) MAYER LAW GROUP LLC 1040 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2400 New York, NY 10018 212-382-4686 Bruce I. Afran (BA 8583) 10 Braeburn Drive Princeton, New Jersey 08540 609-924-2075 Attorneys for Plaintiff UNITED STATES DISTRCT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------CHRISTOPHER HEDGES, DANIEL ELLSBERG, JENNIFER BOLEN, NOAM CHOMSKY ALEXA OBRIEN, US DAY OF RAGE, KAI WARGALLA, HON. BRIGITTA JONSDOTTIR M.P. Plaintiffs, v. BARACK OBAMA, individually and as representative of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; LEON PANETTA, individually and in his capacity as the executive and representative of the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; JOHN McCAIN; JOHN BOEHNER; HARRY REID; NANCY PELOSI; MITCH McCONNELL; ERIC CANTOR; as representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Defendants. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------CERTIFICATION OF ALEXA D. OBRIEN ALEXA D. OBRIEN certifies as follows: 1. My name is Alexa D. OBrien. I am an American citizen, and a resident of INDEX NO. 12-CV-331 (KBF)

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New York. I make this certification in support of the Plaintifs application for preliminary injunctive relief enjoining the operation of the Homeland Battlefield provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 2. As a content strategist and information architect, I have helped design and implement digital content strategy solutions for international governmental organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Between October 18, 2010 and December 30, 2011, I was employed full-time at a publicly traded energy efficiency firm as a digital media architect. 3. In January of 2011, I began writing for WL Central1, an independent news site endorsed by WikiLeaks2, which publishes, information citizens require in order to govern themselves and fact based news, presented in an impartial tone, relying on primary and verifiable sources.3 4. In my capacities as a journalist for WL Central, I covered the WikiLeaks release of US State Department Cables, Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) memoranda known as the Guantanamo Files, or 'GTMO files', and revolutions across Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, and Yemen. I have also covered the US investigations into and the prosecutions of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. 4 5. On February 23, 2012, I attended Bradley Mannings arraignment as a member of a media organization, namely WL Central, which was credentialed by the Pentagon for that hearing. See Appendix for Credential Confirmation for the Arraignment of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning (UNCLASSIFIED) from the U.S. Department
1 2

http://www.wlcentral.org see http://wikileaks.org/Supporters.html 3 See http://wlcentral.org/q-a 4 For an archive of my work at WL Central please visit http://wlcentral.org/users/alexa-obrien/track. For an archive of my work on my personal blog please visit http://www.alexaobrien.com/secondsight/archives.html

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of Defense. 6. In the course of my work at WL Central, I conducted hundreds of hours of interviews and correspondence with former Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) detainees. 7. On June 6 and 7, 2011, I published an interview on WL Central with Omar Deghayes, who had been imprisoned at Bagram and later at GTMO because the United States considers him a terrorist member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is on the State Department List of recognized Terrorist groups. (See Hedges Certification Exhibit A.) My interview with Omar Deghayes concerned his own experiences as well his personal knowledge about other detainees still imprisoned at GTMO including Omar Khadr who is a member of Al-Quada and Shaker Aamer who the US Government asserts is supported by Al-Quada and the Taliban.5 8. I have followed the NDAA or the Homeland Battlefield Act and am familiar with it. I fear that the federal government will enforce the Homeland Battlefield Act against me and that my work as a journalist which has been sympathetic to the plight of detainees -- will be construed as giving substantial support to terrorists and/or associated forces. Because of the passage of the Homeland Battlefield Act, I am now fearful of doing the type of reporting that I have done on individuals and organizations that are considered terrorists by the United States government and my reporting has therefore been curtailed. 9. Because of my work as a journalist, described above, and my work as an activist, which I describe below, I believe that I have become a target of the United States

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/15/shaker-aamer-amnesty-urgent-action; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/guantanamo-gun-abuse-cia-mi5?INTCMP=SRCH; and http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/topstories/8128996.3_000_days_of_Guantanamo_Bay_impri sonment_for_Shaker_Aamer/

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government and because of the passage of the Homeland Battlefield Act which gives the government frightening new powers, I have curtailed my journalism and activism. 10. In March of 2011, I started a twitter profile, @USDayofRage6, and later a website http://www.usdayofrage.org, whose only avowed purpose is to support campaign finance reform in the United States.7 11. In late July of 2011, U.S. Day of Rage endorsed the call to Occupy Wall Street on September 17, 2011. U.S. Day of Rage was responsible for organizing all the nonviolent civil disobedience trainings in New York in the run up to September 17, 2011; and we created nonviolent training talk videos and other aggregated resources that we posted on our web site.8 U.S. Day of Rage has thousands of supporters around the United States and the world.9 12. Despite being non-violent and devoted almost exclusively to campaign finance reform, I have been shocked at how private security firms working in concert with the FBI have tried to insinuate that our group has connections to terrorist organizations, websites and ideas. It is precisely these efforts to link reform groups to terrorists combined with the new powers of military policing in the Homeland Battlefield Act that is not only chilling free speech but giving activists and journalists reason to fear detention, military trial or worse. 13. An email recently leaked by WikiLeaks on February 27, 2012 illustrates the problem. These emails were leaked by WikiLeaks from a global intelligence company called Stratfor which does work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the US
6 7

https://twitter.com/#!/USDayofRage http://usdayofrage.org/about.html 8 See http://usdayofrage.org/resources.html 9 https://twitter.com/#!/MElKasrawy/status/101304983756091392, https://twitter.com/#!/Younis_Big/status/101908867612545024, https://twitter.com/#!/Younis_Big/status/101909734944280577, http://wlcentral.org/node/2128

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Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. 14. In an email exchange dated August 18, 2011 between Fred Burton, Stratfors Vice-President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security, and former Deputy Chief of the Department of States (DoS) counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), and Thomas Kopecky, Director of Operations at Investigative Research Consultants, Inc and Fortis Protective Services, LLC: 10 Re: Fwd: Question EmailID Date From To 5462138 2011-08-18 19:29:44 Anya.Alfano@stratfor.com burton@stratfor.com, korena.zucha@stratfor.com

No, we're not aware of any concrete connections between fundamentalist Islamist movements and the Day of Rage, or the October 2011 movement at this point. On 8/18/11 1:17 PM, Fred Burton wrote: ? -------- Original Message -------Subject: Question Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:15:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Thomas Kopecky Reply-To: tkopecky@fortisworldwide.com To: Fred Burton Hi Fred & thanks for those books you signed....my father thought that was a great gift. I was looking into that U.S. Day of Rage movement and specifically
10

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/5462138_re-fwd-question-.html

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asked to connect it to any Saudi or other fundamentalist Islamic movements Thus far I have only hear rumors but not gotten any substantial connection. Do you guys know much about this other than its U.S. Domestic fiscal ideals ? thanks Tom Thomas Kopecky, Director of Operations - Investigative Research Consultants, Inc. - Fortis Protective Services, LLC 1 E Wacker Dr. Suite 2300 Chicago, IL 60601 312.832.9600 - office 1145 West 5th St. #101 Austin, TX 78703 512.381.9000 800.578.8212 - fax www.ircIntelligence.com www.fortisworldwide.com 15. On its web site, Investigative Research Consultants describes itself as follows:11 IRC has maintained a well respected reputation as an elite operation among private detective agencies in Chicago. We routinely work alongside law enforcement agencies that seek our expertise in the private sector. Our investigators have the work ethic and knowledge that keeps U.S. ahead of the competition and in touch with ever-changing legislation and technology that affects our industry. 16. Though the above-cited emails said they did not find a direct link to Islamic radicals at present, subsequent to this email other individuals working in conjunction with the United States and the FBI linked our group to Al-Quaeda and other terrorsit groups. 17. In late August, the U.S. Day of Rage official twitter profile, @usdayofrage
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http://www.ircintelligence.com/about.html

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began receiving messages that falsely accused U.S. Day of Rage of being affiliated with terrorist groups. These were from a privately owned security and intelligence contractor, Provide Security (@providesecurity)12, managed by Thomas Ryan and Dr. Kevin Schatzle CISSP, CFE, CPP. 18. On the firms website13 and LinkedIn profile14, Provide Security describes itself as: [H]andpicked from the ranks of highly trained and experienced former agents of the U.S. Secret Service, members of U.S. Special Forces, Global Intelligence Agencies and other premier law enforcement organizations. Our experts are Board Certified in multiple aspects of Security from leading Security Associations, including ASIS International, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and ISC2. 19. Then, on September 1, 2011, @usdayofrage received three private twitter message, called a direct message, from @providesecurity:

20. On October 14, 2011, Thomas Ryan of Provide Security, published an article entitled The Email Archive of the #OccupyWallStreet Movement on Andrew Breitbart

12 13

https://twitter.com/#!/providesecurity http://www.providesecurity.com/home/) 14 http://www.linkedin.com/company/provide-security?trk=fc_badge

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Presents Big Government.15 Thomas Ryan directly associates our group U.S. Day of Rage with Al Quaeda and other terrorists organizations and states that he has recruited other people to help U.S. begin the collection of data from social media sites including U.S. Day of Rage. Ryan stated: On August 10, 2011, the hacker group Anonymous announced that it would join the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Thats what sparked my interest in monitoring #OccupyWallStreet. I reached out to a colleague and asked if he would be interested in studying the protest with me. At first, it seemed disorganized, and we believed it would only be a few hundred protestors. As we engaged in monitoring its growth, we recruited other people to help U.S. begin the collection of data available via social media. We began mapping out key players, and monitored Anonymouss [sic] efforts to organize protests in the San Francisco Bay area public transportation system (#opBART) in order to detect patterns and key influencers. Then, at the end of August, we were alerted by a fellow researcher that information about USDoR (U.S. Day of Rage, to which Occupy Wall Street is connected) had been posted on Shamuk and Al-Jahad, two AlQaeda recruitment sites. We began to take the Occupy protest more seriously, and dedicated more time to research and monitoring. Days later, Anonymous announced that it would be releasing its new DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tool. Because of the Al-Qaeda posting, we contacted the New York Field Office of the FBI so they could investigate the potential threat. From that point on, we decided we needed to include the Human Element of Intelligence (HUMINT), and to infiltrate the protestors to map their ties to Anonymous, and to the postings on Shamuk and Al-Jahad. 21. I have since found that my employer has been repeatedly by U.S. government agents concerning my involvement with U.S. Day of Rage and the Occupy movement. 22. Between October 18, 2010 and December 31, 2011 I was employed full time at a publicly traded energy efficiency firm as a digital media architect, responsible for the
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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cY0nTMNZZbwJ:biggovernment.com/thomasrya n/2011/10/14/the-email-archive-of-the-occupywallstreet-movement-anarchists-socialists-jihadists-unionsdemocrats/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

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content strategy of the firms internal content management system and website. 23. In a late October 2011 telephonic meeting, between myself and the firms director of federal programs, who is also a former interrogator and foreign language specialist with the Massachusetts Army National Guard, I was told that multiple individuals in the U.S. government on multiple occasions had asked him about me by name. In early December, after being pulled off several projects and experiencing increasing difficulty at work managing the perceptions concerning my extramural work, I telephoned the CEO of the firm where I was formerly employed, and asked him, What was going on? He mentioned to me that the quality of my performance was not in question, but many people within the company were extremely concerned about the press around my involvement organizing Occupy Wall Street, which could become a liability for the company, whose clients include a major U.S. bank and the federal government. 24. Not wanting to create problems for the CEO I agreed to leave at the end of the year if I could claim unemployment and be given a good recommendation. 25. On January 11, 2012 Australian Security Magazine published an article entitled, Radical Islam: Global influence in domestic affairs that directly linked, again incorrectly, U.S. Day of Rage to radical Islamists:16 More recently we found the same types of activity by radical Islamists during the planning of the U.S. Day of Rage that was scheduled for September 17th 2011. While it certainly did not take root and there were none of the violent clashes that took place during the UK riots, none the less the same types of people were there seeking to influence proceedings. Those aiming to influence the U.S. Day of Rage followed a similar pattern as the group and individuals we found to be trying to influence groups for CHOGM. Most were looking to promote violent confrontation, while some were spreading low level jihadist propaganda. 26. Based on all of the foregoing, I have an actual and well-founded fear that the
16

http://www.australiansecuritymagazine.com.au/2012/01/radical-islam-global-influence-in-domestic-affairs/)

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US Government will consider me a covered person under the Homeland Battlefield Act and will either detain me indefinitely or subject me to a military tribunal. Because of this fear I have substantially curtailed my journalistic and political activities. 27. For example, the NDAA has caused me to be concerned about enhancing the security of my interview files. Two days ago, before I left on a trip to London for a television interview in connection with the Occupy movement, I double encrypted Skype interview files (both audio and video) of my discussions with a former solider at Guantanamo who I interviewed about physical restraints used at Guantanamo as to detainees. I did this encryption because I was concerned about the government possibly inspecting my computer library at customs upon my re-entry to the U.S. from London. I had not taken such measures prior to the passage of the NDAA. 28. In addition, I have held back on publishing two articles on WL Central concerning; 1) the interviews with the soldier described above; and 2) my interview with a detainee at Guantanamo who reported that his government-appointed defense lawyer deliberately undermined his defense in a commission hearing resulting in a guilty plea to a modified charge. My concerns about the impact of the NDAA in deeming me to have substantially supported terrorist groups by the publication of these materials is a significant factor in my delaying publication of these interviews or parts of these interviews. 29. I am not a professional activist. I am an ordinary working professional and citizen. I rely on my good reputation and salary to live and engage with larger society and have relied on my salary to fund my journalistic and organizing activities. I have witnessed first hand how simply trying to reform government led me and my

10

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organization to be branded as being associated with terrorist groups by the Government and private security companies working with the government. If the Homeland Battlefield Act of the NDAA remains the law of the land, the government, working with private contractors, could not just tarnish my reputation, but detain me indefinitely without trial and this is a frightening prospect. 30. I have also spent substantial time and money because of the passage of the Homeland Battlefield Act. I have spent money on phone calls and travel to discuss these issues with fellow activists and lawyers.

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